P.S. being a petrol can collector that Esso reference is really bugging me, Esso has always been US owned, by Exxonmobil. They bought out the Australian Atlantic Petroleum, Exonmobil closed Esso Australia when they realized the Mobil brand would make them more money here. I couldn't help myself lol.
G'day Kye,
There's some interesting history behind those names, US originated though they are.
'Esso' is just the phonetic spelling of the acronym 'SO'. The Standard Oil Company Trust was a huge US petroleum industry company, that was established and controlled by the Rockefeller family. The US Government forced it to be broken up in 1911, into 34 'independent' companies, many of which retained the 'Standard Oil' words in their new names.
The Standard Oil Co. of New York became 'SOCONY Mobil', and later just 'Mobil'; the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey became Esso, and later Exxon. Then in more recent times [1999], these two re-amalgamated to become ExxonMobil!
Why the invented name 'Exxon'? Because 'Esso' has a rude or derogatory meaning, in some of the world's languages.
The beginning of the end for Australian ownership of our 'downstream' [i.e. refining and distribution] petroleum industry was in 1952, when the then Federal Government sold its half of the joint-venture 'Commonwealth Oil Refineries' company to the other half-owner, the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., which later became British Petroleum, then just BP.
BTW 'upstream', in its petroleum industry meaning, refers to the production and transport, and some processing, of crude oil and gas. It's usual for oil wellhead fluids to include oil, dissolved gases, and water - often salty water.
These fluids are separated adjacent to the wellhead before the sales gas and oil are conveyed, by pipeline/s and/or tanker/s, to the next processing stage.
The water is generally disposed of at the wellhead; either by re-injection into the oil-bearing formation, or in the case of offshore platforms, purification to a standard which makes it permissible to pump it overboard into the sea.
The Bass Strait standard for discharge to sea is <30mg/L of oil-in-water - 30ppm.
